Oh Good God. That was a bastard. Heat Exhaustion is a five star quest (but fairly early on) which requires a big of thinking to do. Firstly, it’s set in the volcanic area, so naturally you’ll need a good supply of cold drinks. Secondly, it requires carrying burning hot rocks which constantly deplete your health from one end of the map to the other, a bit like the ‘Poached Wyvern Eggs’ quest. Except they don’t break if you drop them – they explode. So you’re going to need a lot of health and a lot of stamina. Thirdly, just to make things fun, there’s a Uragaan on the loose. If it hits you, the powderstone explodes. If the ground shakes when it thumps its tail, the powderstone explodes. If you’re in range when it roars, the powderstone explodes.

It’s a bastard of a quest. Here’s what I did:

First off, take plenty of potions, mega-potions, cool drinks and well done steaks. Most importantly, get a meal made with fresh ingredients and choose the cooking method which will give you Felyne Lander. This will allow you, carrying a stone, to leap from the ledge in area 10 and land safely in area 5, shortcutting half of the map, without the damn thing exploding.

Clear out any mobs you find on your way to 10. Many of them won’t respawn and it’ll make things easier when carrying the stones.

This bit is optional, but makes things more interesting. Hunt down the Uragaan. He does a lot of damage but isn’t mega-tough. That will probably take you about half an hour, leaving you an easy 20 minutes to grab the stones. Pick them up at 10, run like hell off the ledge to 5, then it’s plain sailing. Repeat. Win.

So, today’s lunchtime was spent ganking a Gobul. Which sounds a little rude. But it wasn’t. It basically involved swimming around a lot and stabbing it in the face even more. I’m finding the underwater combat really fun and satisfying – more so than in any other version. Mostly because of the ‘monster lock’ function. Underwater, with 360 degrees of movement on all axis, you can move really smoothly and simply by pretty much just using the lock button and evading in various directions. Anyway – the Gigul was pretty straight-forward to defeat (once I worked out the being behind him is only a good idea if you enjoy a very long paralysis).

So, I’ve not really been doing much gaming for the last year or two. Just fiddling with a few titles here and there. It’s a bit of a recurring ennui, really. I can pin-point pretty much where this lengthy slump came from. It pretty much coincides with the end of the Gamecube era and the start of the Wii era.

Throughout its life, there was a steady stream of seriously good (to my eyes – I have odd tastes) titles appearing on pretty much a monthly basis on the cube. A fair few of them I still pull out every now and again. More than a few have gone in my gaming top-ten-of-all-time.

So, to say I was disappointed with the Wii is an understatement. I’m sure there were some good titles released, but the sheer volume of utter shovelware pumped onto the system did a damn fine job of masking it. Even the first-party titles didn’t particularly shine for me (with a few exceptions). Something I’d normally consider unthinkable happened. Skyward Sword – a Zelda game – is sitting on my shelf. I haven’t played it. And I LOVE Zelda.

Anyway, things appear to be looking up. I have a 3DS and it’s starting to get some damn good titles. Titles of a quality that it’s beginning to feel a bit like the Gamecube era. In the last six months or so I’ve bought Ocarina (again :)), Cave Story, Harvest Moon, Fire Emblem, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Donkey Kong Country Returns and Luigi’s Mansion 2. Without exception, they are magnificent.

In fact, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate is SO magnificent that I’ve just bought a Wii-U to play it on. Thank God, it looks like Nintendo are getting their act together.

This shouldn’t be possible. How can I be addicted to a Harvest Moon game again? They’re all the same (more or less) and yet I’ve been addicted to every single one of them. Rune Factory, though, is a wee bit different. Kinda. Sorta. You’re still put in charge of a farm. You still grow crops, upgrade your house, make friends, get married, raise children and all that other lovely Harvest Moon goodness.

Except they’ve added dungeons. And monsters. And levels. And stats. And more OCD-triggering collectibles than you can shake a stick at. In short: I’m doomed.

So anyway, I’ve played the first four hours and here’s what I’ve achieved. Got some land organised, tidied away some sticks to kick start my woodpile once I get an axe, grown some radishes and potatoes and things. Met most of the people in the town – including one called Sharron. I have designs on Sharron. Oh yes

After doing a fair bit of ploughing and preparing the ground, I was given a pass for the first cavern system (which, incidentally, you can plant crops in and which stay the same season! Handy!). Sadly, I almost got ganked by a monster as soon as I went in, and if your HP falls to zero, you die. Not good. So I ran away. I’ve also done rather a lot of fishing. There’s something deeply relaxing about it.

So – plan B. I’m going to leave the caves alone for the first year, at least until I can afford some decent gear.

So, sitting here while Hurricane Bawbag howls around Dow Folly. The power keeps dropping out and, as I’ve had to work from home due to the extreme weather warning, I’m thankful, for once, that I have an ipad.

So, with the house shaking all round me, what better time to post a quick update on DQ9.

I played through the preamble and found that my little angelic character has been punted to earth as a mortal. She’s dashed around a lot doing good deeds, killed roaming monsters, and cleared a couple of rather lovely dungeons.

Now at level 19, I’ve just clambered back up to my angelic home only to discover all is not well.

This is a lovely little rpg with a great combat system (and particularly good companion ai if you don’t want to micromanage), all the stats in the world, and stupendous writing.

So, itâ€™s been a while since I got my teeth into a lengthy RPG on the DS â€“ largely because I havenâ€™t actually owned a DS for a couple of years. My recent acquisition, however, of a shiny new blue 3DS means that I have a huge backlog of JRPGs to catch up on. It seemed fitting that a Square Enix one was first.

Recently, most of my gaming time has been spent on either the brutal-tastic Dark Souls on the 360 or beta testing The Old Republic on the PC. Itâ€™s problematic doing this at the weekend due to both my boys nurturing an unhealthy Skyrim obsession â€“ Matts on the PC and Tristan on the 360. So, handheld gaming is where itâ€™s at.

So, while this is a game diary entry, I have to come clean and say that Iâ€™ve done nothing more than stick the cart in the 3DS. I will create a character today, and it will be a little girly called Bague (because itâ€™s tradition, dontcha-know) but itâ€™s likely to be tomorrow before I actually start playing. Hereâ€™s to the next hundred or so hours of slime-bashing!

Also (whispers) I should probably confess that this is my first Dragon Quest game!

Still plugging away at Prime. The game should have had these controls since the very beginning. I’ve only just ganked the boss guarding the morphball bomb (the sentry thing that shoots flames at the war wasp nest) and I took it down in a fraction of the time it took first time round on the cube – mostly because of the added ability to circle-straff while independently shooting other things.

OK, so I sneaked a wee go while Tristan was playing Team Fortress 2. So, having woken up in a Goomba hut, I proceeded to go looking for Grampa Goomba, fell off a building, found a hammer in a bush, thumped some blocks, thumped more Goombas, then finally met the King Goomba and thumped him too. Then I saved.

So I’m attempting to finish some games that kinda fell by the wayside after The Great Falling Out Of ’09, and Paper Mario came top of the list. One thing I discovered along the way is that Wii Virtual Console purchases aren’t tied to your Nintendo account, they’re tied to the hardware. This means that, shiny new Wii or not, any VC purchases you’ve made need to be purchased again. Nintendo, bless them, did say that if your hardware dies at any time (even out of warranty) they’ll transfer all the purchases over for you. Seems a bit primitive for this day and age, but anyway – I digress.

So, I managed to play about 15 minutes of this last night, but that was just enough time to see that cad, Bowser, kidnapping Princess Peach – AGAIN! Honestly, the man / turtle / thing really needs to get a girlfriend.